http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008806110314
This is the truth, so help me Casey Stengel, and when I saw it I knew I would remember it till my dying day.</p> <div class="articleflex-container"> <div class="articleflex"> It was wintertime, basketball season, and we were up at Mississippi State covering a game. In the hallway behind the arena at Humphrey Coliseum there was a bulletin board. That day's baseball practice schedule was listed. </div> </div>
There were all the usual things. Warming up. Infield practice. Batting practice.</p>
For 3:28 p.m., I kid you not, the listing read: Practice intentional walks.</p>
Ron Polk was not then nor is he now a man who believes there is any such thing as an unimportant detail.</p>
We laughed that night. But there's more at play here than merely an acute sensitivity to detail, which is not unheard of among elite coaches.</p>
John Wooden would have his UCLA basketball players practice tying their shoes. There is, Coach told us at a seminar in North Carolina one spring, a right way and a wrong way to do everything.</p>
Paul "Bear" Bryant's football practices at Alabama were marvels of efficiency, including getting fluids into 100 players in two minutes flat.</p>
Intentional walks? The pitcher has to know how to play it. The catcher, too. A mistake, a passed ball, and there goes a game. Maybe a conference championship. Maybe an NCAA tournament bid. So, at 3:28, precisely, we're going to get it right.</p> <h3>Focus, baby ...</h3>
In our business, whether we're covering sports or politics or flower shows, we tend to run into lots of obsessive people. That's because it's the obsessive types who tend to reach uncharted levels of excellence.</p>
They just can't let go. They can't think about anything else. They start early and go hard and stay up late and leave no game film uncharted and no rose bed unturned.</p>
It's the nut in the basement who will cure cancer. It's the Einsteins who struggle with simple algebra who will uncover the one true scientific explanation for everything.</p>
It's the coach who practices intentional walks who wins a thousand games and goes to the College World Series.</p> <h3>Ball four ...</h3>
By now we're all familiar with Ron Polk's bizarre outburst after Mississippi State hired John Cohen, rather than Tommy Raffo, to succeed him as State's baseball coach.</p>
In a way, perhaps, he's not dissimilar to the company founder who thinks of his business as his own personal fiefdom even though the company went public 20 years ago.</p>
He wanted to name the man to replace him, and that man is Raffo, Cohen's teammate under Polk years ago.</p>
It could be that Polk, a lifelong bachelor, spends too much time alone. That, perhaps, he lacks a certain balance. Whatever ...</p>
He was wrong and he is now backing up ever so slowly.</p>
But I expect many people who've known him for 30 years aren't all that surprised.</p>
Wanting to name the next coach is just another example of practicing intentional walks. It was one last detail.</p>
One last ball four.</p>
This is the truth, so help me Casey Stengel, and when I saw it I knew I would remember it till my dying day.</p> <div class="articleflex-container"> <div class="articleflex"> It was wintertime, basketball season, and we were up at Mississippi State covering a game. In the hallway behind the arena at Humphrey Coliseum there was a bulletin board. That day's baseball practice schedule was listed. </div> </div>
There were all the usual things. Warming up. Infield practice. Batting practice.</p>
For 3:28 p.m., I kid you not, the listing read: Practice intentional walks.</p>
Ron Polk was not then nor is he now a man who believes there is any such thing as an unimportant detail.</p>
We laughed that night. But there's more at play here than merely an acute sensitivity to detail, which is not unheard of among elite coaches.</p>
John Wooden would have his UCLA basketball players practice tying their shoes. There is, Coach told us at a seminar in North Carolina one spring, a right way and a wrong way to do everything.</p>
Paul "Bear" Bryant's football practices at Alabama were marvels of efficiency, including getting fluids into 100 players in two minutes flat.</p>
Intentional walks? The pitcher has to know how to play it. The catcher, too. A mistake, a passed ball, and there goes a game. Maybe a conference championship. Maybe an NCAA tournament bid. So, at 3:28, precisely, we're going to get it right.</p> <h3>Focus, baby ...</h3>
In our business, whether we're covering sports or politics or flower shows, we tend to run into lots of obsessive people. That's because it's the obsessive types who tend to reach uncharted levels of excellence.</p>
They just can't let go. They can't think about anything else. They start early and go hard and stay up late and leave no game film uncharted and no rose bed unturned.</p>
It's the nut in the basement who will cure cancer. It's the Einsteins who struggle with simple algebra who will uncover the one true scientific explanation for everything.</p>
It's the coach who practices intentional walks who wins a thousand games and goes to the College World Series.</p> <h3>Ball four ...</h3>
By now we're all familiar with Ron Polk's bizarre outburst after Mississippi State hired John Cohen, rather than Tommy Raffo, to succeed him as State's baseball coach.</p>
In a way, perhaps, he's not dissimilar to the company founder who thinks of his business as his own personal fiefdom even though the company went public 20 years ago.</p>
He wanted to name the man to replace him, and that man is Raffo, Cohen's teammate under Polk years ago.</p>
It could be that Polk, a lifelong bachelor, spends too much time alone. That, perhaps, he lacks a certain balance. Whatever ...</p>
He was wrong and he is now backing up ever so slowly.</p>
But I expect many people who've known him for 30 years aren't all that surprised.</p>
Wanting to name the next coach is just another example of practicing intentional walks. It was one last detail.</p>
One last ball four.</p>
